Stendal National 2025 – The Second Extreme Marathon Stage for the Western Province

Last weekend, more precisely on July 12th, 1,080 pigeons were released for the Stendal National 2025 race, an extreme marathon competition (+900 km). The event mainly gathered pigeon fanciers from the Western Province but also included a few brave participants from Mehedinți and Harghita counties.

A total of 225 pigeon fanciers entered pigeons in the Stendal National 2025 race. These competitors came from 10 different pigeon club branches, as follows: Arad: 41 fanciers, 240 pigeons; Bihor: 75 fanciers, 300 pigeons; Satu Mare: 23 fanciers, 184 pigeons; Timiș: 49 fanciers, 220 pigeons; Caraș-Severin: 11 fanciers, 29 pigeons; Maramureș: 3 fanciers, 7 pigeons; Hunedoara: 2 fanciers, 4 pigeons; Harghita: 2 fanciers, 8 pigeons; Sălaj: 17 fanciers, 70 pigeons. A special mention goes to pigeon fancier Mircea Copăceanu and the team “Byl and Jon” from Mehedinți, who entered 18 pigeons into the Stendal National race—even though their club usually competes on different marathon routes.

Bihor Fanciers Dominate – The Ilea Brothers Win the Pigeon Rankings

Brothers Cătălin and Răzvan Ilea from Cihei, Bihor County, have been competing together since 2012. They focus exclusively on extreme marathon stages such as Stendal, and they seem to be doing very well. For this race, they prepared a team of 13 pigeons, flown in the natural system. One of them, the hen RO-2022-2020050, returned to their loft at 18:38:10 after flying 956 km. She was the second pigeon officially recorded in the race, but her flight speed of 1,389.99 m/min placed her in first position, where she remained until the final results were published. The winning hen was flown while sitting on eggs 8–9 days old.

Thus, the Ilea brothers won one of the most prestigious marathon races in the Western Province—an event that has taken place many times and is always known for its difficulty.

Another Team Takes First Place, in the Fanciers Ranking

As previously mentioned, first place in the fanciers overall ranking also went to a duo from Bihor County: Zlibuț S & Pop-Cotuna G, consisting of Sebastian Zlibuț and Gabriel Pop-Cotuna from Oradea. In true champion fashion, they entered just five pigeons in the race. Three of those birds made it into the rankings—enough to earn the team first place among fanciers with only 16.67 penalty points. Their team featured hens RO-2024-0565035 and RO-2022-0511291, which arrived at 19:26:43 and 19:32:25 respectively, after flying 952 km. They placed 8th and 10th overall in the race. Both hens were flown while raising chicks—the first with very young chicks (2–3 days old), and the second with slightly older youngsters (around 14 days old).